Mumei tucked the boys into Naruto's toad bed gently and kissed them goodnight. They looked so adorable. Naruto has snuggled up with his toad plushie and Sasuke was sucking his thumb like his life depended on it. He took a mental snapshot and promised himself he would never forget the image in front of him now.
As soon as Mumei exited the boys' room, his soft smile turned into a hard line. It was time. The midnight hour.
Down the stairs he went, meeting Kakashi and Itachi by the door. They all had on ANBU standardized uniforms and a bird mask as well as hoods. They had a mission to carry out and they were fully prepared.
Mumei created two shadow clones, one of himself and one of Kakashi to sit in the living room in case one of the boys got up. Each took up a book on strategy and settled down for the night.
The trio exited the compound and took to the roofs, moving in a line formation with Mumei at the helm.
They quickly arrived at the Uchiha compound. Kakashi took off for the police barracks while Itachi and Mumei split up inside the compound.
— VIOLENCE —
Important info will be summarized at the end of the chapter.
Kakashi
The masked copy nin took off towards the Konoha Military Police Force Headquarters.
All of his targets were out on patrol tonight as the overwhelming majority of them were simple foot soldiers. Partners to boot. It was interesting how similar types of people often got partnered up together.
Coming to rest on a shop rooftop, he spotted his first targets.
Uchiha Inabi, Yashiro and Tekka were strolling down the road laughing about something inane. Probably a citizen that they had terrorized, Kakashi surmised. The trio were well known for their straightforward and often offensive behavior.
Kakashi lured then into an alley with a soft trill. He felt a little guilty killing good cops but he valued loyalty to village above all else. He knew what he needed to do.
He dropped a pre-made sound and visibility barrier into the alley once the trio had entered to investigate. Inabi and Yashiro went in to investigate while Tekka stood guard near the entrance and provided cover.
Kakashi ended their lives with three well-placed kunai. Each hit their target with a sickening thunk. Bodies slumped to the floor and Kakashi descended to clean up his mess.
He sealed the bodies in a stasis seal and pulled cleaning supplies out of another. There was very little blood but he scrubbed it with a heavy duty cleaner and scattered around some rubble from the alley over the cleaned areas.
Kakashi took down the barriers and took off for his next targets.
Uchiha Yakumi was next. The man assisted Fugaku in his duties so he knew very well what was going on within his clan. He was fiercely loyal to his people but not his village. Yakumi was one of the leaders of the coup movement and it was now time for his death.
Yakumi was located inside the Headquarters and was considerably harder to get to. However, Kakashi had the upper hand. He had blueprints and photos.
Arriving at the main Police Barracks, Kakashi dropped silently onto the roof, avoiding the view of the guards that were on lookout duty. He made his way over to the roof of Yakumi's office. He plastered a sound and visibility barrier on the area above the office and paused. He reaches out with his chakra, ensuring that his target was in the room below. Affirmative.
Kakashi activated his seals and used a Shunshin to enter the office. As he knew exactly where it was and what it looked like, it was easy as pie.
Yakumi looked up from his paperwork at the intrusion but it was too late. A kunai has already left Kakashi's hand. It embedded itself in the traitor's trachea. He gasped for air, hands reaching for purchase on the offending weapon. He grasped it and pulled it from his neck. This was a fatal error. The kunai acted as a cork and as he pulled it from the wound, air rushed out of the hole. A soft whistling and choking was all that could be heard in the room.
Kakashi stalked forward and began his cleanup as the man asphyxiated in front of him. 10 minutes was all it took. 2 minutes before unconsciousness and than an additional 8 to ensure brain death.
Kakashi busied himself looking through documents that proved the coup and securing them in a separate seal. Once his target was dead, Kakashi sealed him away with the other bodies.
He Shunshined back to the roof to remove his seals, the office left spotless in his wake.
Kakashi went on to kill an additional 17 men and women that were complicit in the plot.
Uchiha Yukichi, Uchiha Nobuhito, Uchiha Hisayuki, Uchiha Momuami, Uchiha Okimi, Uchiha Rokuko, Uchiha Botan, Uchiha Mokichi, Uchiha Kojuro, Uchiha Kokei, Uchiha Akane, Uchiha Tokie, Uchiha Tomiji, Uchiha Keitaro, Uchiha Nori, Uchiha Haruka, and Uchiha Wakuza. All deceased and sealed away.
Kakashi was so efficient that it only took him 4 hours to kill all his targets. Approximately 11 minutes per target was all he needed.
He had managed to gather many documents pertaining to the coup and he looked forward to piecing together the whole picture. For now, he had another task at hand. Burying the bodies.
Itachi
Itachi arrived at his clan compound with Mumei by his side. His first target was his father Fugaku. He wanted to get the hardest kill out of the way.
He navigated his way through the buildings and towards his family home. A figure appeared in front of him. He wielded a kunai in each hand, ready for a fight.
"It's me," the figure whispered.
Itachi stepped closer to investigate. Shisui.
"What are you doing?" Itachi inquired.
"What am I doing? What are you doing?" Shisui asked suspiciously.
"What needs to be done. There are traitors in our home."
"I know," Shisui whispered forlornly.
"Are you…" Itachi trailed off, concerned that he would have to kill his best friend.
"No, no! They asked me to spy on you. I couldn't bring myself to do it," Shisui reassured him.
"Thank you, but I have work to do," he told his lifelong friend.
"Okay, just be careful," Shisui urged him.
"I always am."
With that, Itachi took off for his home. It was time.
He stepped through the front door, dancing around the creaky spots on the floor and headed towards his parents bedroom. Inside he found his mother and father sleeping peacefully. He creeped closer, standing at the foot of their bed.
"Kneel," he snarled.
Fugaku and Mikoto woke with a start.
"I said kneel, Father," he repeated.
"What is this?" Fugaku asked of his eldest son.
"This? This is your execution for crimes against your village."
"You know?" Fugaku inquired.
"Of course I know," Itachi fulminated.
Mikoto sat there looking shocked.
"Know what?" she cried. "What's going on, Itachi?"
"Father has been scheming. A coup d'etat. Are you complicit?" he turned his attention to his mother.
"She knows nothing," Fugaku said, the loving husband to his dying breath.
"Kneel," he stated again.
Fugaku rose and obeyed his son.
"I'm sorry, my son. I did what I thought was best."
"No, you did what you thought was best for you," he fumed.
Itachi stood behind his father, suddenly tall for his 12 years.
"Goodbye, Father."
Itachi places one hand on his father's chin and the other on the back of his head and swiftly broke his neck. The crack broke the rest of Itachi's grasp on childhood.
It was painless. A good death.
Mikoto crawled out of bed and onto the floor next to her beloved.
"How could you?" she sobbed, pulling his limp head to her chest.
"I'm sorry, Mother."
"You're not my son. Itachi could have never done this," her cries muffled by her husbands hair.
"Give me his body. He must be buried," Itachi said with no emotion. He had lost both his mother and father in one fell swoop.
"No no no no!" she blubbered uncontrollably.
Itachi pulled his father from his mother's grasp, leaving her in a heap on the floor, bawling. He sealed his father's body in a stasis scroll and left his mother there, alone, to mourn both her husband and son.
His eyes burned. Were they tears? Itachi blinked again and again. His hands scratched at his lids. Finally he opened them and the burning had stopped. He pulled the hand from his face and he knew. Mangekyou Sharingan.
Itachi mindlessly killed the rest of his guilty clansmen. Bukijutsu and Shurikenjutsu were his main weapons. It was easy. Child's play. The slight-of-hand that Shisui had taught him came in handy.
Kami-sama it was easy. A slash here, a shuriken there. They all fell. The cleanup was the worst. Scrubbing his clansmen's blood was a grueling task. All he could focus on was the color. The color of his eyes. His Sharingan was blood red. It was fitting. A kekkei genkai used for death should be a bloody red.
Mumei
Mumei moved through the clan compound in amazement. He has only seen it as a ghost town. Even now, with its people asleep, it seemed alive.
He slipped from building to building. Civilian casualties were his task. They were the most innocent so it was arguably the hardest task. Luckily there was no need for killing children this time. Only the guilty were to be harmed. No Jutsu were needed, just a simple kunai or shuriken would do the job.
He slipped into the first house. Uchiha Jun. He had a wife and three children. Undoubtedly he was part of this plan for them, so they could be royalty. Instead he would be murdered in his sleep.
Mumei skated into the master bedroom. He placed a sleep seal on the wife's forehead with a delicate touch. Attention shifted to the husband. Jun. He looked peaceful. Unaware. He sighed and placed another sleep seal on the man's forehead. He needn't feel any pain. He dragged the man from his bed and held him over a bucket. Mumei gently severed his carotid arteries with a kunai and held him to bleed out into the bucket.
It took less than a minute for Jun to die. At least he felt no pain. Mumei sealed up the body and blood and went to remove the sleep seal from the wife.
He heard tiny footsteps pattering down the hall and stopped outside the door. He snatched the seal off the woman's head.
"Meisaigakure no Jutsu," he whispered, holding up the tiger hand seal. Mumei backed up to the wall just as the child burst through the door.
"Tou-chan! Kaa-san!" The little girl tried, flinging herself onto her parents' bed.
Her mother woke with a start, wrapping the 3-year-old in her arms. She moved to wake up her husband but found the bed empty. Odd. Maybe he had to use the bathroom, she surmised, thinking nothing of it. Mumei moved for the door silently.
Just as he was about to make it out into the hallway, the floor beneath him cracked. The wife's eyes jolted up, expecting to see someone there. There was nothing, so she shrugged it off. It's an old house, she thought.
Mumei held his breath and stepped out into the hallway. Still camouflaged he Shunshined to the roof and breathed out a sigh of relief. That could have ended very poorly.
Mumei slipped back into the night, ending the lives of many. In total he killed 26 civilians. It was tough work but someone had to do it.
He descended to the graveyard. It lay past all the houses, away from the river as well as any houses. He made many shadow clones and sent them to dig graves. It was time.
Mumei was already digging graves by the time Itachi and Kakashi met up with him. They had their stasis seals full of bodies and clean up materials and were ready to deposit the bodies in their designated graves.
It seemed kind of sick, but Mumei had prepared every ounce of the operation down to gravestones with names for each of the deceased. There was no mention of traitor on the graves but everyone would know the truth soon enough.
Kakashi and Itachi helped the clones bury each body the required 6 ft under so that animals couldn't get to them. It was a distinguished burial, better than many of them deserved. In all, 64 Uchiha had died that night. It was drastically better than what it could have been. What it should have been.
— END VIOLENCE —
When dawn broke, the three weary shinobi formed a line once again and made their way to the Hokage tower. The Sandaime knew what was to happen that night so he would surely be in his office.
The trio arrived via window, their clothes dirt and blood covered. They removed their masks and kneeled respectfully in front of their superior.
"Thank you for your service. You may rise. What documents have you acquired?" the Hokage inquired.
"Full documentation of the coup, Hokage-sama," Itachi spoke up. The trio proffered their findings and laid them on the desk.
"The 64 traitors have been executed and laid to rest," Mumei offered.
"I'm sorry you had to do this, but your actions are deeply appreciated. You have saved hundreds of Uchiha their lives. They will understand."
Itachi hung his head. He was not sure he would ever be forgiven by his mother let alone his clan.
"Itachi, you are now Clan Head. Choose your own council that you are sure of," the Hokage advised.
"I will, Hokage-sama. Thank you," Itachi bowed his head respectfully.
"Now then. The three of you need some rest. Dismissed."
The three murderers donned their masks and flew out the window. They still has business to attend to and miles to go before they could sleep. Itachi had a clan to run and Kakashi and Mumei had young boys to take care of.
The bird-masked men took off in their own directions.
Kakashi and Mumei arrived back at the compound in good time. The boys were still fast asleep in bed, as expected. The men sagged into the couches in the living room and Mumei dismissed his clones.
"When do you think the Hokage is going to announce the deaths?" Kakashi inquired of his companion.
"Sometime soon. The police will be freaking out with all the disappearances," Mumei offered.
"I don't know how Itachi is going to break the news to Sasuke," Kakashi sighed. "I know I couldn't bear to do it."
"Mmmm me neither. Telling someone that their father has been killed because he was a traitor is not something I'd ever like to do in my lifetime," Mumei mused.
Both men felt a subtle shift upstairs. The boys were awake. Mumei rose to make breakfast.
He shuffled around in the kitchen, reheating some gohan and miso shiru. He also prepared some natto, yakizakana, tsukemono, nori and kobachi. He set out all the dishes on the table and waited for the boys to race down the stairs.
The thundering steps of 4 tiny feet finally made their way down the stairs and to the kitchen. Mumei steeled his expression and welcomed the young boys with an enormous hug.
The two men and two children sat down at the table for breakfast and had started to dig in when Naruto had an announcement to make.
"I've decided!" he yelled, "Sasuke is my best friend!"
Sasuke blushed a bright red.
"You're my best friend, too," he murmured, staring down at his dishes.
Inside, Mumei and Kakashi were screaming like little fangirls. They were so adorable. Both men wished they had friends like that when they were young. The two had taken to each other like fish to water and had already built up a great repore. Their teamwork was something else, too. Mumei knew there was something missing but that would be fixed soon enough.
Once breakfast was finished and the dishes were done, the four went outside to do a little training. Kakashi, as usual, took a book and climbed up to his perch. Sasuke looked pretty amazed by this and requested to be taught how to do it. Naruto quickly joined in and the duo's puppy dog eyes were too much.
Kakashi explained how tree-walking worked to the boys and they started practicing immediately. Neither of them were making it very far, but both adults were having a ball watching them try their best. Kakashi went back to his book but kept a careful eye on the two. Mumei on the other hand was back to practicing his katas while watching like a hawk. Nothing was happening to those boys on his watch.
Sasuke and Naruto had managed to run up 10 feet by the time the gate doorbell rang. Sasuke sighed, knowing it was time for him to go. Naruto's face grew sad. He didn't want to say goodbye to his new best friend quite yet.
"Sasuke, you can come over tomorrow if you want," Mumei offered, "you're always welcome here."
Sasuke and Naruto beamed at the blond man in response to that tidbit. They grabbed each other's hands and ran for the gate. Mumei was not far behind although he chose a slower gait.
Naruto waited diligently until his guardian was there and then unlocked the door. Itachi wore a grim look on his face.
"They made the announcement," he deadpanned. "Sasuke, I need to talk to you. Something bad has happened."
Sasuke ran to his older brother and hugged him around the waist.
"You can talk inside the house," Mumei offered, "it's better he knows before you go outside."
Itachi grasped his little brother's hand tightly in his own and led him into the house without another word.
Mumei crouched down and drew Naruto up to himself and broke the news.
"Sasuke and Itachi's dad died last night. He and some of the clan were going to do a very bad thing so they had to be stopped," he told the boy gently.
Naruto had never met Sasuke's family but he started bawling anyway. The boy was very empathetic. He had never had a family of his own so he knew what it was like to be alone. He didn't want that for Sasuke, not his best friend.
Mumei comforted Naruto for about 10 minutes. He could feel emotions radiating from the house. Anger and sadness were prominent. Sasuke and Itachi stalked out of the house shortly after Naruto had stopped crying.
The boy's tears began anew at the sight of his proclaimed best friend and he ran to the raven haired boy and scooped him into a hug as big as his tiny arms could muster.
"I'm sorry about your dad," he whispered.
"I'm not," Sasuke stated coldly, "he was a traitor."
"You can still love someone even if they did a bad thing," Naruto responded in part.
"But he did a really bad thing," Sasuke grumbled.
"Maybe one day you can forgive him but it's okay if it's not today," Mumei cut in before things got too heated.
"Definitely not today," Sasuke snarked.
"It's time to go, Sasu," Itachi said with a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"Bye Naruto, bye Mumei-san," the boy said sullenly.
Itachi and Sasuke walked out the gate. Mumei could feel the whispers, feel the stares, from where he stood. It reminded him of his childhood, frankly. It was an unpleasant feeling.
He crouched down next to Naruto again.
"You know, whatever they say about Sasuke, it isn't true. They're just angry at his family. Sasuke didn't do anything wrong."
"I know," Naruto responded, "people say all sorts of mean things about me but they're not true. I don't believe anything unless it's straight from the source."
"You're a very smart boy," Mumei smiled.
"Thanks, nii-chan," the boy beamed at his uncle.
"Come on, let's get you out to the training field. I want to see how far you can get up that tree."
Translation Time
Bukijutsu = use of weaponry in battle
Shurikenjutsu = technique of throwing shuriken, senbon or kunai
Meisaigakure no Jutsu = Hiding with Camouflage Jutsu
Gohan = cooked rice
Miso siru = miso soup
Natto = fermented bean paste
Yakizakana = broiled fish
Tsukemono = pickled vegetables
Nori = seasoned dried seaweed
Kobachi = vegetable sides
Note: I don't actually know if the real Uchiha members were in on the coup. Most are OCs I made up just to be killed but some are canon characters. I have no clue if they were in on it. I just needed names to kill off.
And yes I made Shunshin a verb.
Violence section summary!
Kakashi is a total badass. Itachi destroys his childhood and his mother's heart. No seriously Mikoto is gonna have a real hard time after this. Shisui is alive and chilling. He's on board with the whole massacre the traitors thing. Mumei is kicking ass and taking names. All the Uchihas are buried because that's respectful and I mean they were still Itachi's family.